“We should tell Joel.” She looked at him, one eyebrow raised, probably assuming he was joking. “Just to keep things cool,” he explained.

Reluctantly, she said, “Okay, I’ll tell him.”

As she walked away, Barney came over carrying the spear he’d made out of the metal pole and the knife.

“Hi, Tom. I didn’t get much chance to talk to you yesterday.”

Tom looked across to the makeshift shelter where Barney had been tending to Chloe. Chris was there with her now. “How is she?”

“I think she’ll be okay, but…”

Tom nodded and said, “I’m gonna scout over the hill, see what’s ahead.”

“Then you should take this.” He handed him the spear. “Honestly, I really made it for you anyway.”

“Thanks, Barney.”

“My pleasure.” He smiled and added, “Anyway, things to do.”

Barney walked away and joined Kate and George, who were standing near the river. Tom watched as George held up a mosquito net and listened to Kate explain how they were going to use it.

Just then, Alice came back. “Joel wants us to wait a minute—he’s coming with us.”

“Let him,” said Tom, and smiled.

The three of them set off, finding a way up off the beach and up the hill. The undergrowth was thicker, offering up no real paths, so Tom used the sharp knife-edge of the spear to clear the way in front as far as possible, trampling, too, conscious that they would all have to walk this same route at some point.

He wanted a vantage point, but wherever he had the chance to take a lower route around the side of the hill, he opted for that, once again thinking of the whole group making the same trek. And in the end, that took them to a kind of vantage point anyway, a small bluff on the other side that provided a view out over the tops of the trees that filled the slopes below it.

At first, the view wasn’t promising. The land seemed to level out on the other side, nothing more than undulations and huge flat expanses, all of it green, an unending tropical wilderness stretching to the horizon under the sinking orange sky.

But Tom pointed to the river, wide enough below the gorge that from up here they could even see glimpses of flat open surface as it gently snaked away into the landscape.

Alice looked in the same direction for a little while before finally saying, “It looks like we’re a long way from anywhere, though.”

“But if there are settlements, they’ll be on the river. It all looks the same from here, but…” She looked at him, and he laughed. “Honestly, I have no idea. But it’s the way out.”